Name: Chilli Paneer
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients: 400 g paneer, cut into 2 cm cubes; 4 tbsp cornflour; 2 tbsp plain flour; 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder; ½ tsp fine sea salt; 5 tbsp water; 400 ml vegetable oil, for frying; 1 green pepper, cut into 2 cm squares; 1 onion, cut into petals; 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped; 2 ½ cm ginger, finely chopped; 3 green chillies, slit; 2 tbsp light soy sauce; 1 tbsp rice vinegar; 1 tbsp tomato ketchup; 1 tsp caster sugar; 1 tsp cornflour mixed with 3 tbsp water; 3 spring onions, sliced

Chilli Paneer

Battered paneer tossed with peppers and onion in a dark, glossy soy and chilli sauce. Indo-Chinese, and the one everybody orders.

40 min total Serves 4 servings Medium

The sauce is thickened with a cornflour slurry added at the very end, off a rolling boil, and it must go in while the pan is moving. Poured into a still pan it seizes into lumps that never disperse. The other rule is speed: once the fried paneer meets the sauce you have about ninety seconds before the crust softens, so have everything cut and measured before the wok goes on.

Chilli Paneer, in preparation
Photograph credit: Paneer Chilli by Rameshng · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Flickr · this resized copy is shared under the same licence

The Method for Chilli Paneer

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Whisk the cornflour, plain flour, chilli powder, salt and water to a thick batter that coats a spoon.
Turn the paneer through it until every cube is covered.
Heat the oil to 180°C / 355°F and fry the paneer in two batches for 3 minutes each, until pale gold and crisp. Drain.
Pour all but 2 tbsp of the oil out of the wok.
Over a high heat, fry the garlic, ginger and chillies for 30 seconds.
Add the pepper and onion and stir-fry 2 minutes — they should stay crunchy.
Add the soy, vinegar, ketchup and sugar and bring to a fast boil.
Stir the cornflour slurry again and pour it in while stirring hard. It thickens in about 20 seconds.
Tip in the fried paneer and toss for 30 seconds to coat.
Scatter the spring onions over and serve immediately.

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Tips That Matter

Slurry into a moving pan, never a still one.
Everything cut before the wok goes on.
Serve within a minute or the crust goes soft.

Changing the Recipe

Out of spring onions? A small regular onion, finely sliced, or a few chives stirred in at the end both cover the job.
Dried chilli flakes can stand in for the green chillies. Heat varies a great deal between chillies and between jars, so start with a small pinch and add more to taste.
If you only have ground ginger, a quarter-teaspoon for each tablespoon of fresh is the ratio usually given; it tastes warmer and less bright than the fresh root.

Serve It With

Hakka noodles · Schezwan fried rice · Cold beer

Storage

Does not keep — the coating softens within the hour.

What's in a Serving

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (most of the energy comes from foods with no recorded source). Why some recipes have none.

Vegetarian